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First post: An Introduction to the Experiment

So, I have a thesis proposal due in like four days that I’ll be spending a year writing. I had everything all planned out…”Economic globalization, the Neoliberal revolution, and the American worker”. A fun little adventure into describing an era, which in many ways, has proven to be pretty lousy for the past 30 years or so. Then came the KONY 2012 video. With a base in sociology, this incredibly sudden, youth driven global movement caught my eye as something far more interesting…I guess my initial argument is that we’ve seen something unprecedented in the past week, and that it may be a step towards understanding how people may start to organize in the future and where that could take us, particularly in terms of collective action (which will be demonstrated by the KONY movement around the globe on 4/20 according to Invisible Children). Analyzed for a while, watching the movement develop as a global humanitarian/political force may also say a great deal about changes in self-identification between the analog and digital generations, and where they place themselves in the world…I’ve also got a half assed theoretic framework in which to base where I’m coming from the issue in it’s totality.

In the last two days I’ve grown so interested that I started to analyze the numerical, demographic, and geographic structure of the video’s views on Youtube. I then started comparing it to other videos…pop singers/culture from around the world; various political issues; international sports; the all-time top hits on Youtube; videos with about the same number of hits as KONY (as of this morning); video criticisms of the KONY documentary; other activism related videos; other videos that have been introduced in the past week and received large audiences; and videos that have been around for a long time but have had few hits (in order to try and understand how the mapping process works, which I’m still trying to understand, but, after seeing videos stats that have been flatlined for years and still high density in certain countries, leads me to believe that the KONY map is indeed accurate). I still have about 20 to do before the pattern really becomes clear, but this is the first set of data I’ve put together in the past 24 hours. The one’s I haven’t yet put up reinforce the pattern I discern even more clearly, covers more categories, time frames, youth hits, and gives one a pretty good idea what the charts (particularly the map) say about the global spread (or lack thereof) of knowledge, and that nothing except maybe the official song for FIFA 2010 comes anywhere close.

Youtube Video Comparisons (more coming soon)

Good Idea/Bad Idea?
(polls)

I’m looking for feedback as to whether anyone else sees the same pattern I do which makes the KONY 2012 video unique and important, as well as questions and criticisms of this very crude analysis. It’ll take less than five minutes to run through the charts, and even the shortest of feedback would be great.

AND PLEASE! If you think people in your network would find this the least bit interesting please SHARE IT on Facebook and Twitter. If I can get just TWENTY people to share this and they each have networks of 200-1000 (that contain at least a few people who might be interested in this) I might be able to get enough perspectives on the idea, or at least a larger set of data on how this (my) information does or does not get noticed by anybody. Thank you!

I’ll update as I go with more statistics, data on social networking among the youth as a source of news, global reaction to the initial video, as well as continuing to make sense of a seemingly anomalous global dissemination of information from the grassroots level, rather than governments or news corporations.

Mission Statement:

This blog is meant to be a part of a Masters thesis I will be writing for a program in Globalization Studies at Dartmouth College until spring 2014.

Only a few of my posts are in the header above. Please scroll through to see everything.

The blog is indeed an experiment within the larger framework of the thesis. I would like to see how far this blog can go, geographically, demographically, and in terms of creating meaningful discussions. I hope to use this as a way to gauge the effectiveness of this form of social media--in coalescence with those it easily links to--from the perspective of a single organizer as compared to larger networks and organizations. I am seeking input, criticism, and the chance to talk with anyone who shares an interest in these subjects as the year progresses. If you find the contents of this site to be of value, please share them on FB, Twitter, etc etc. as that is the primary vehicle driving the blog forward and disseminating it to a wider audience.

Most Important Pages

Network

Thoughts

"If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows who had not been satisfied with their conditions, you would still be living in caves. Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization. Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation. "
--Eugene Debs

“The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated when compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.”
--John Maynard Keynes

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice"
--Martin Luther King Jr.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world"
--Mohandas Gandhi

"Nations will rise and fall, but equality remains the ideal. The universal aim is to achieve respect for the entire human race, not just for the dominant few."
--Carlos P. Romulo

"I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."
--Edward Everett